


Surprise on the Doorstep

by ecrituredelafangirl



Series: Shenanigans [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Combeferre as a dad, Combeferre is perfect, Gen, M/M, and more relationships as well, and yeah, but Courf/Jehan for now, but they'll all be through here eventually, if that doesn't conjure beautiful images in your head just come and read this, it's only three of them in this chapter, so this is what happens when I give the Amis a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecrituredelafangirl/pseuds/ecrituredelafangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when the Amis get left with a baby that no one is completely sure is one of theirs? This is what happens.  </p><p>Or, at least, this is the beginning of what happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprise on the Doorstep

His mind was logical. When faced with a problem, he easily found the best solution after just a few critical moments of analytical thought. He was wise beyond the years of a twenty-one year old man. And still, he had not been prepared for this.

He arrived home late on a night in April – having just bid his best friend good-bye after hours at the Musian – and he found it. A bundle nestled into a car seat, resting on his front porch. It was oddly reminiscent of Harry Potter. That thought forestalled the panic that was bubbling up from inside him.

There was a torrent of roiling thought – there was a baby, a baby, on his doorstep. God knows how long it had been there. God knows how nothing had happened to it thus far. God knows where it had come from. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. He pushed his glasses up his nose. This all took about a minute. Then he decided that the best thing to do in this situation would be to bring the child inside and call – call – call whom? Which of his friends was possibly equipped for something like this?

Enjolras? No. He wouldn’t be anywhere near his phone anyway.

Bahorel? Probably drunk by now. No.

Grantaire? Definitely drunk by now. Ah. No.

Feuilly? He had work in the morning. It would be best not to disturb him.

Joly? Ah. Perhaps. But he was visiting his mother this week. 

Jehan? That was an option. Maybe.

Bossuet? Maybe? Although, he didn’t seem like he’d be the best bet. With his luck, he’d drop the child. No.

Courfeyrac? His instant reaction was hell no. But, then he remembered his friends’ relationship with Gavroche, that girl’s younger brother, and he wondered. And then he recalled the sheer number of younger sisters Courfeyrac had (five, all of which Combeferre had finally met last Thanksgiving). And suddenly hell no became a yes.

A quick phone call, and suddenly Courfeyrac was on his way over. He hadn’t asked any questions over the line, just made it clear that Jehan would be coming with him. And then a key was fit in the lock of Combeferre’s front door.

Courfeyrac stopped in the doorway, once he saw the car seated bundle that Combeferre had set on the coffee table. His mouth dropped open and a single expletive fell from his lips. Jehan gracefully weaved his way around him, showing much less surprise, and chirped something about not swearing in front of the baby.

“What have you done?” were Courfeyrac’s next words. Jehan was sitting on his ankles, making cooing noises at the child, while Combeferre sighed. He removed his glasses to clean them hastily. Nervous habit.

“I haven’t done anything. This was waiting for me when I got home from the Musain,” Combeferre said. He sounded remarkably calm. Actually, he was remarkably calm.

“It’s a she,” Jehan said suddenly, from the ground. “Or, at least that’s what the note says.” He was holding a piece of notepaper in his hands reading it hastily.

“What else does the note say?” Courfeyrac asked. Jehan looked up.

“Nothing really. Just that she’s about two months old, she doesn’t have a name, and that she’s yours,” he said, gesturing to Combeferre. He grimaced a little, seemingly afraid that the news was unwelcome, but Combeferre smiled – a small, but warm smile – and Jehan looked down at the note, slightly pink. “It’s signed, too. Jennifer?” He looked up once more.

Combeferre shook is head. “I don’t know any Jennifers,” he said. And Jehan bit his lip, his brow furrowed slightly.

“I mean, it could say Jessica… She doesn’t have the neatest print,” he muttered.

“You can decipher Enjolras’s handwriting, Jehan. It says Jennifer, trust me,” Courfeyrac assured. And then he smiled down at Jehan who practically beamed back at him. Combeferre cocked an eyebrow.

“Jennifer?” he said. He had to repeat it before Courfeyrac could be persuaded to look at him. And suddenly, there was an almost guilty look on his friend’s face. “Courfeyrac,” he intoned seriously.

“I mean, it was months ago, right? And we were drunk, okay? We were all drunk,” he said quickly. Jehan shot him a look as he adjusted the baby’s blankets.

“Enjolras wasn’t drunk,” he muttered.

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes at the smaller man. “Enjolras is never drunk. It’s seriously the hardest thing in the world to get him to do anything profane. It’s like trying to corrupt a self-righteously patriotic puppy or something.” Jehan smiled, no doubt at the image now playing in his head. But Combeferre frowned at Courfeyrac for a moment before his friend yielded sheepishly.

“You were drunk and there may have been a chick you were talking up at the bar and then you two disappeared for a while and then you came back alone and I don’t know what her name was, but I doubt you do and really,” Courfeyrac smiled easily, “I doubt anything happened.”

Combeferre, with a wry look in his eye, gestured to the table, where Jehan was now gently extricating the baby from the seat. “I doubt it too.”

Courfeyrac’s ears turned slightly red at that. “Or something could have happened,” he conceded.

“I don’t remember any of this,” Combeferre said quietly. He gently pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “You say I was drunk?”

“Hammered,” Courfeyrac said bluntly. Combeferre looked over at Jehan. The boy was staring down at the baby, seemingly in awe.

“She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen,” he said gently.

“She’s awake?” Combeferre questioned. And he found himself stepping forward, kneeling next to Jehan, who nodded gently and angled the child, so that she was facing her father. What a strange thought.

“You’re right,” he said softly, and Jehan smiled. The baby had terrifyingly delicate features – from her nose to her little bow-shaped mouth to the clearest bright blue eyes he had ever seen. And then there was the shock of downy dark brown hair that stuck out from beneath the hospital cap. The filthy, two month old hospital cap.

“She needs a bath,” he said gently.

“And, probably a diaper change,” Jehan nodded.

“And a whole slew of other things. And it’s fucking late – sorry Jehan – so, if you want to pick up anything tonight – which I am going to recommend to you right now – we have to get going,” Courfeyrac said. He gestured to the door when Combeferre looked up at him.

“All of us?” he questioned.

“I figured we’d leave Jehan here with the kid, and I could help you. We’ll take your car –“

“As you don’t have one,” Combeferre said drily.

“As all I have is a motorcycle. And while Jehan is comfortable on the back, you –“

“I am not Jehan. We’ll take the car,” Combeferre conceded. He turned to Jehan. “You’ll be okay? Alone? With…her?”

Jehan fixed him with an “oh, please” look. “I have two younger brothers, Combeferre. And I assume you’re just going to the CVS down the street?” Courfeyrac nodded, looking pleased. “It’ll take you less than half an hour. I can handle a baby for half an hour.”

Combeferre nodded and stood, pushing his glasses up his nose. He ignored Courfeyrac’s “I mean, he’s been keeping this flower-plant-thing alive in my apartment for almost a year now,” as he grabbed his car keys and made his way to the door.

He was almost out the door when he caught, from the corner of his eye, the entirely not platonic kiss given by one of his friends to the other.

 

\-------------------

 

On the thirty-minute trip to the drugstore, two subjects were brought up and then laid to rest expediently. Firstly: 

“So, you and Jehan?” Combeferre asked as he started the car.

“For a year now. Or a little more. Or, at least it’s been building that long. Nothing really happened until a month ago.” Courfeyrac shrugged, his ears turning pink once more, visible in the light from an upstairs window.

“You seem happy.”

“I’d go with exuberant, honestly. Or euphoric. Happy doesn’t quite cover it. He’s incredible.”

“Good. I’m happy for you.”

And Courfeyrac’s smile was brilliant.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly:

“So. This kid. Are you going to…keep her?” Courfeyrac asked gently, selecting a package of baby wipes. He showed Combeferre what brand before setting it in the basket at their feet.

Combeferre froze. “Keep her?”

“I mean – she’s hardly your – “

“If she is truly my daughter, Courfeyrac, she is most certainly my responsibility,” he said sharply. “Of course I’m going to keep her.” Courfeyrac nodded then, once. And that was that.

\--------------------

 

Even if she wasn’t his, Combeferre admitted to himself on the car ride home, he was never going to give her up. He’d heard horror stories from Feuilly about child services and that whole governmental system… And even if it had been nearly five years since Feuilly himself had been subject to it, Combeferre doubted it had actually improved. He would never subject a child to that – the feeling of not belonging anywhere, not even to a family… No. 

It took him all of thirty seconds to decide that. It took him all of thirty seconds to become her father.

\--------------------

 

“O, now she’s happy, look at her,” Courfeyrac said. He was lying next to her on the floor. And the baby was indeed showing more genuine signs of life, now that she was clean and freed from her disgusting blankets and clothing. She was naked but for clean diaper, and squirming slightly on the floor, on top of a fleece blanket. (One that Combeferre kept for those nights when someone – mostly Bahorel – needed a place to crash)

She was too thin, though. Malnourished, Combeferre was sure. Whoever this Jennifer woman was, she hadn’t taken very good care of the girl.

Jehan came over and folded himself onto the floor next to Courfeyrac, a bottle in hand.

“You test it yet?” Courf asked. Jehan fixed him with a questioning stare. 

“What?”

“Test the temperature of the formula? When Marianna was born I had to do it, like, six times a day,” he sat up and reached a hand out, “give the bottle here and let a pro show you how.” He then wiggled his eyebrows. Jehan smiled, turning slightly pink behind his freckles. “You come join the training sesh, too. You’re gonna need it more than Jehan.” He then called to Combeferre, who was making a makeshift bassinet next to his bed. If it didn’t work soon, the baby was just going to have to come and sleep in his bed. He sighed and took his glasses off to wipe at them before joining Jehan and Courfeyrac on the floor.

“You’re a mess, dude,” Courfeyrac said without preamble, looking at his bespectacled friend.

“I hope you don’t mind, but Courfeyrac and I are taking the liberty of staying the night,” Jehan than said firmly. His gaze brooked no arguments or protest. Not that Combeferre was going to make any. He was grateful.

“Okay,” he said slowly, looking from one to the other. “I believe you were giving a ‘training sesh’?” he prompted. And Courfeyrac nodded.

“Indeed I was,” he said. “All right. So, right here. You take the bottle in your hand and you tip it over and you go ahead and you squirt a bit of formula on your wrist to test the temperature. The inside of your wrist, ‘cause that’s where the sensitive skin is. And you do that – and this is a perfect temperature, actually.” He smiled at Jehan, who rolled his eyes with a slight smile in response. Then he looked over at Combeferre. “Give me your wrist. You gotta feel this so that you know how to do it for the rest of her foreseeable infancy.”

And Combeferre held out his wrist, accepted the pleasantly warm feeling of the liquid on his wrist – not hot, at all, but not cool. That perfect temperature, right in the middle. And he nodded to Courf, who proceeded to pick the baby up, gently, cradling her head, cradling all of her really. He looked pointedly at Combeferre. “This is how you will hold your daughter. Until such a time as she can hold her head up on her own.”

And Combeferre nodded again. And then Courfeyrac proceeded, with the most gentle expression Combeferre had ever seen on his face, to feed the little girl. His little girl.

It wasn’t long after she was fed that she was asleep. It wasn’t long after she was asleep that Courfeyrac took her over to the couch and lay down upon it, she on his chest. And soon he was asleep as well, a protective hand over the little girl’s back. Jehan watched this all fondly, while Combeferre desperately tried to baby-proof his apartment with what little knowledge he had of children, and what little supplies he had. Needless to say, that was going horribly. 

At some point during his rushing around, Jehan reached out and gripped his ankle firmly – enough to make him stop, but not enough to make him trip. When Combeferre looked down, he found the poet smiling at him. 

“She needs a name,” he said softly. And Combeferre raised his eyebrows. 

“Excuse me?” he asked, not sure he heard correctly. Jehan patted the ground next to him and Combeferre sank into a sitting position.

“She needs a name. You need to name her,” he said again. And Combeferre found himself reaching for his glasses again, removing them, scrubbing them on his shirt hem. 

“I-uh… Names,” he said and sighed. “Not my strong suit.”

“They don’t need to be. But she needs a name.” He looked over at Combeferre then, and realized how flustered his friend was getting. He reached out, laid a calming hand on his shoulder. “Hey, if you think about it, it’s probably just a temporary thing. You’ll give her a name, but if she doesn’t like it, just let her change it.”

Combeferre nodded, comprehending. “That…that would make it easier.” He swallowed slowly and Jehan laughed softly.

“Take a deep breath. And think of a name you like,” he said, smiling. “I promise not to let you name her anything truly atrocious. “

Combeferre smiled a bit and slid his glasses onto his nose. He hummed a little trying to think, and Jehan let him. Jehan was good with stuff like that.

“I’ve always been partial to the name Lillian,” he said quietly. 

Jehan nodded. “And a middle name could be?”

“Emma?” Combeferre suggested.

“O! I love that name! Can that be her first name?” he said excitedly. And Combeferre just blinked at him for a moment. “Or not. You do what you want.”

“No. It’s fine,” Combeferre said, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “I like Emma Lillian. It’s pretty.” And then smiled for real, for the first time all evening and Jehan returned it in kind. “And, as you said, if she doesn’t like it, I’ll let her change it.”

Jehan beamed at that. “Emma Lillian,” he sighed, looking over at his boyfriend and the baby on the couch. “Suits her, you know.”

And two hours later, when she began to fuss, hungry and probably in need of a change, Combeferre got a good look at her face. And he admitted that it really did.


End file.
